Which communist party should I join?

Which communist party should I join? I live in the suburbs of Chicago so I live far away from many of the party offices in Chicago. Which of the main communist parties in the US should I join? I'm looking for one that is active with many members. The ones I know of are CPUSA, PSL, WP. Are there any more with a strong presence in Chicago that I can join?

If you live in Chicago, I would recommend checking out PSL. There's a number of people on this forum who are affiliated with this party, and it seems to be one of the most visible and active parties on the American scene. PSL may have a quasi-Trot past, but it seems to have gotten beyond the more dogmatic aspects of such ideology. I'd say they have a party which is reasonably relevant and forward thinking.

Of course, there are other parties in Chicago. RCP has a presence there but, unless you're willing to throw in your lot whole hog with "Chairman Bob" and his rather unique brand of "Avakian Thought", you might want to give it a pass. CPUSA is there, as it is everywhere, but it's in the throes of a leadership crisis due to Sam Webb's clique being mired in accusations of tailing the "left" wing of the Democratic party (if such a wing even truly exists anymore).

Miss Strangelove: "You feed giants laxatives so goblins can mine their poop before the gnomes get to it."

1. Be happy that you live near a city with several party branches.2. Screw #1, living in the suburbs sucks.3. I'd try and go to a left neutral rally (i.e. immigration/gay rights, anti war, ect.) where you will be able to talk to multiple leftist parties attending the same demo. 4. If there is no major mobilization in Chicago anytime soon, check out the various party's forums or movie hosting ect.5. As a PSL member I say join the PSL.

I'd pretty much sum it up at GET ACTIVE! You can attend events/rallies/forums of various parties while you gather info on them. You have to chose which party is right to join. I can answer any further questions about the PSL or you can find out more info here: http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/branches/chicago/

"By what standard of morality can the violence used by a slave to break his chains be considered the same as the violence of a slave master?" - Walter Rodney

Why not just give all of them a call (if travel to the city is expensive) and see what's what? Like, what kind of people are they, what do they do, etc. What's the point of being told by strangers on the internet which party (none of which you've gotten a real-life impression of so far) you should commit yourself to? Because in a proper communist party, membership = commitment.

I mean, I don't want to get off into some kind of "kids these days" rant, because I really think it's great that people want to get up and do something. But to me, these threads always seem a bit pointless, which is mainly the fault not of the person who asks the question, but of the people who answer. Any over-opinionated yahoo on the internet can say whatever he wants to dissuade you from joining an organisation, even when he has no idea about it.

To illustrate, suppose I'm a Maoist or a Trotskyist or whatever on the other side of the world, affiliated to a section of the "International" (CWI, IMT, RIM, whatever), and I tell you: "Avoid the CPUSA at all costs, they're reformists who only tail the Democrats! Join the US section of my International instead!" But of course I have no idea about the situation in Chicago, in fact, I haven't even got an idea about life in Chicago in general. Maybe in Chicago, the CPUSA has the best connections to the organised working class, while "my" group is organised from someone's mom's basement. But I get to tell you which group has "a bad line" or whatever.

So that's why I recommend you just contact these people (phone is always quicker than e-mailing), perhaps arranging a meeting with a contact person, and see if you can participate in activities for a while before joining officially.

I wouldn't join any, save your money! None of them are communist, only state-capitalist or Keynesian in outlook.Why pay a monthly fee and give up your Saturday afternoon to sell, or fail to sell, a party newspaper.

So, you think the revolution will arise from a lot of individuals being inspired by the Will of the Lord, or something like that?If you don't organize, you'll never accomplish anything.

What did the communist parties ever achieve? What is their legacy? Gravestones. People may have cheered when they came to power, but they cheers were louder when they were overthrown.None of them will get a penny from me. Would be like paying the executioner for the bullets.

Kronstadt was hopeless to begin with, and a few of those resolutions are throwbacks to cottage industry, something which hasn't existed in the UK for at least 200 years in any appreciable scale. Only the first three have any kind of relevance, and even then, except the right to assembly, they are just vague cries about "freedom!!" and "democracy!!" which don't mean shit to anybody. If you want to modernise it, modernise it. Do it on actual conditions now, and not some normative post-revolutionary condition.Those demands have as much relevance today as those in the original Communist Manifesto, even in the Magna Carta where it stated women cannot undertake legal action, except when they were pressing charges against someone they suspected of killing their husband. Relevant?

Why not just give all of them a call (if travel to the city is expensive) and see what's what? Like, what kind of people are they, what do they do, etc. What's the point of being told by strangers on the internet which party (none of which you've gotten a real-life impression of so far) you should commit yourself to? Because in a proper communist party, membership = commitment.

I mean, I don't want to get off into some kind of "kids these days" rant, because I really think it's great that people want to get up and do something. But to me, these threads always seem a bit pointless, which is mainly the fault not of the person who asks the question, but of the people who answer. Any over-opinionated yahoo on the internet can say whatever he wants to dissuade you from joining an organisation, even when he has no idea about it.

To illustrate, suppose I'm a Maoist or a Trotskyist or whatever on the other side of the world, affiliated to a section of the "International" (CWI, IMT, RIM, whatever), and I tell you: "Avoid the CPUSA at all costs, they're reformists who only tail the Democrats! Join the US section of my International instead!" But of course I have no idea about the situation in Chicago, in fact, I haven't even got an idea about life in Chicago in general. Maybe in Chicago, the CPUSA has the best connections to the organised working class, while "my" group is organised from someone's mom's basement. But I get to tell you which group has "a bad line" or whatever.

So that's why I recommend you just contact these people (phone is always quicker than e-mailing), perhaps arranging a meeting with a contact person, and see if you can participate in activities for a while before joining officially.

This is possibly one of, if not the, most reasonable points of view I've ever heard a fellow socialist on the internet put forward.

I like it, because it says your duty as a socialist is to go where people are, rather than wait for them to come to you. I'm not going to lie, the state of class politics in the developed world is in a sorry state but this is a much more forward-looking way of looking at it.

Yes no doubt sects would call you or I MR 14 opportunists, etc but c'mon. If Marx could work alongside Lassalians and Proudhonites then the soft Maoist can get along with the soft Trot (I'm of the latter category).

Kronstadt was hopeless to begin with, and a few of those resolutions are throwbacks to cottage industry, something which hasn't existed in the UK for at least 200 years in any appreciable scale. Only the first three have any kind of relevance, and even then, except the right to assembly, they are just vague cries about "freedom!!" and "democracy!!" which don't mean shit to anybody

Those were pretty concrete demands aimed at restoring Soviet power as opposed to party power. Of course, the party bureaucrats experienced extreme backside pain over that.

I'm just a Brit, so I don't claim to have any specialist knowledge of the American political scene.

However, as a member of the British Communist Party (CPB) I would recommend you getting in touch with the American Communist Party (CPUSA) http://www.cpusa.org/

Jarvis Tyner, Vice President of the CPUSA, took a political tour of Britain, and he was one of the most amazing comrades that I have had the pleasure to meet! Not only could he talk about his time organising for Martin Luther King, but he was also a consummate Marxist-Leninist and political activist who could speak on any subject.

On that basis alone - get in touch with the CPUSA and see what they are doing in your local area, whether they have an active club etc. By being an active member you will learn from the active tradition of the greats of the US Communist movement, stuff you could never learn from YouTube videos or books! Being active and involved in your country's mainstream Communist Party is by far the best way to get a political education, and to be politically useful to the local community and labour movement.

And I'd shy away from the more narrow and exotic "purest" sects or groups. They specialize in claiming that the likes of Socialist Albania was the most advanced country in Europe, or that in China the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was the highest achievement of mankind!! As we say in Scotland "Aye, right! Pull the other one!"

Sign up for the CPUSA, get reading the classics of Marx, Engels, Lenin and indeed Stalin (you don't need to be a 100% Stalin apologist, but his writing are extremely useful and well written), and also the classics of American communism!

Best wishes,K

"When I feed the hungry, they call me a saint. When I ask why people are hungry, they call me a Communist." Dom Helder Camara, Brazilian Archbishop

Are you really shilling for the CPUSA, the most notorious quasi-communist party in the West and a de facto the Dem. Party's tail-organization?It stopped being a communist party decades ago but nowadays it's self-liquidation is almost complete.Even the PSL would be a much better choice if you want to get in touch with communists.